


All Aboard

by DuckInterpreter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 03:37:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuckInterpreter/pseuds/DuckInterpreter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek is wrangled into working aboard a pirate ship, and it seems bleak until he meets the new cabin boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Aboard

Captain Deucalion, or Captain Duke as he was better known, was a hard man- hard to scare, harder to please- but he had taken a shine to Derek and had made him first mate, mostly because Derek knew what he was doing and didn’t talk much.   
Derek had come from a family of sailors; he had been working on boats since before his memory would take him. When the rest of his family had died in a horrible storm, leaving him as the sole survivor, Derek thought he would never sail again. But, as it turns out, not many of his skills were transferable to land-living. It was not too long after he realized this that Captain Duke had found him, drunk and hungry, sleeping in an abandoned shed. Duke told him he’d been looking for the famous Hale family, only to find out they’d died- all but one.   
“The plan is to sail for Navigator Islands- and as I’ve heard it’s particularly nasty waters, I’m requiring your expertise for navigation. Hales are known for their knowledge of the sea, or they were,” he had said, with a short, cruel laugh.  
He leaned in close, his breath sour in Derek’s nose.   
“And, son? It’ll be your head if you fail.”   
Had Derek been a little less hungry (or a little more sober) he’d have turned tail and run then. As it was, however; he gladly followed Captain Duke to the dock.  
Derek arrived on the boat before the rest of the crewmen; he was poring over some maps with the navigator, Ennis, when the men streamed aboard. They set sail oddly fast, Derek thought, but he hadn’t given it any mind. When he left the cabin he realized all the men carried weapons. With a sinking feeling he turned to look at the flag they flew: a red flag, with bones painted in a ring in the centre of the decaying fabric. He was aboard a pirate vessel. He ran to the edge of the boat and watched as the land disappeared from sight. Dismayed, he cast eyes to the Sterncastle Deck, where Captain Duke lounged against the railing. He smiled at Derek, all teeth and no mirth, and Derek had the sinking feeling he would live to regret this- if he survived long enough.   
.  
They weren’t so bad, as far as pirates went. Mostly they were just robbing trade ships and leaving the survivors with naught but a row boat and a barrel of port. That was Captain Duke’s personal joke, because he’d been caught once, by Commodore Argent no less, and sentenced to death. For his last meal he had requested the Commodore join him for a glass of port, and made his escape. Or so he said.   
After Derek successfully directed the ship to the Navigator Islands Captain Duke had called Derek to his cabin and poured him a glass of port. “That was a job well done, sailor, though the law are close behind. They’ll have caught wind of you, no doubt about it. Of course, you’re welcome to stay on. I’d even be willing to put you on as first mate. Your own cabin, command of the men.”  
Derek had taken a sip of the vile drink and considered the offer. Not much of a choice. When all was said and done, it was stay here or return to land, alone and wanted.  
“I’ll stay. On one condition.” Derek finally said.  
“And what would that be?” He growled  
“I won’t kill a man in cold blood.”  
The Captain laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.  
“We’ll see, son, we’ll see.”   
.  
Although Derek was loath to admit it, he enjoyed the boating. Hoisting the sails, navigating the dangerous waters, having the cold sea air in his hair, it was what he was born to do. But he hated the pirating. The men were an unpleasant lot, uncouth drunken villains, not to mention the smell, and the work made him sick to think about. It was too late for him to return to land, however: the tale of the only survivor of the Hale family who became a pirate was too wide-spread. He could barely think of returning to port when they landed back in America.  
In Boston, while the crew flooded to the pubs and brothels in the city, Derek stays on the boat and set some crab and lobster traps. The men arrive back at dusk, tipsy, with a couple of new cabin boys to replace the ones who had died or defected. Derek barely looks at them, absorbed in cracking the hard shell of a lobster he had caught and devouring the raw meat, before tossing the hard shell into the roiling waves below.  
The men either groan or sneer at him (they told him, on many occasions, that it was fare fit only for prisoners and slaves), except for one of the new boys, who passes right by him.  
“Don’t listen to them. Lobster’s an undervalued delicacy,” he said.   
Derek raises his eyes and considers him as he passes. He looks as green as they came, all long limbs and pale skin, unblemished by the sun or sea. He tears off a claw and throws it to boy, who snatches it from the air with an ease of grace that Derek wasn’t expecting. The new cabin boy inclines his head at him.   
“Thank you, sir.”   
The soft “sir” hit Derek as though it were a real thing, running down his throat and settling into a knot in his stomach. Derek turns coolly away to look out to the ocean and, frowning, throws the last of his meal in. He suspected he might be in for a world of trouble.  
.  
Three nights later Derek finishes steaming the last of the lobster while Erica, the woman who cooks for the ship bustles around him, a flurry of movement, teasing him all the while. She doesn’t usually let the men into the kitchen- it was the best way to keep the girls she employed safe. But she had taken a liking to Derek, for whatever reason. It might have had to do with his smile, which he saved for her alone on the ship, or the fact that he preferred to make his own meals. She also told him, with a large wink, that she guessed he wouldn’t be a danger to her girls (to which he flushed and muttered that he couldn’t guess what she was talking about).  
“There’s seven lobster in there, honey, are you expectin’ to eat it yerself? Because that’ll make you ill.” She said, peering into the metal bucket.   
“Oh, no, there was a new cabin boy, who didn’t seem to find it quite so vile as the rest of you heathens,” he said with a quick smile.  
“New cabin boy, huh? Goin’ta share a meal?”  
Derek left the kitchen, swinging the bucket.   
“I resent your lewd implication, Erica.” 

He went looking for the boy, who he had seen a few times since he boarded, although they hadn’t spoken again. Each time he saw him he had watched him without quite realizing it, straining for a glimpse of his hip or stomach as he bent down or stretched for supplies. Once he saw him, laughing, run a hand up his stomach, raising his shirt a little, exposing a pale, hard stomach and a dark trail of hair running down from his belly button towards...   
Derek had swallowed, hard, and walked back in the other direction.   
The sun had set and was rocking gently on the calm ocean. Most of the men were drinking on the main deck while they waited for Erica to finish the evening meal- biscuit and salt pork. He grimaced at the thought, the salt pork was truly terrible fare.   
As Derek rounded a corner he saw the boy on his hands and knees, a pirate standing over him. The boy looked up and to meet Derek’s eyes just as the pirate’s boot connects with the his ribs. The boy gasps, the wind knocked out of him.   
“Sailor,” Derek said sharply. “What’s going on here?”   
The pirate jumps, his hand going for a dagger.   
“He was- he was giving me lip, sir.” The pirate, who Derek identified as Ethan, one of the twin ship chandlers, responded, dropping his hand and straightening.   
“I think that’s quite enough, sailor. We want him to be able to work.”  
“Sir, I was just-”  
“I said that’s enough- unless you would like to continue to argue with me?” Absently, Derek rests a hand on the hilt of his sword, and Ethan’s face darkens. The crew had all seen Derek sparring with the men; he couldn’t be beaten with a blade. Ethan shuffled off, Derek not taking his eyes off him until he had rounded a corner. He reaches out to clasp the hand of the boy, who takes it gratefully, though he winces as he stands. Derek drops his hand like it’s hot the moment the boy was upright.   
“I was looking for you.” Derek said, and the boy raised an eyebrow.  
Derek coughed “I, uh, I had to make the rest of my lobster before they died, and there’s too much for me.” He says, awkwardly. “I thought to find you,” he picked up the bucket of warm lobster from where he’d left it, “since you’re the only other person on board who can stand it.” The explanation had seemed smoother in Derek’s head.   
“Oh, great!” The cabin boy exclaimed (to Derek’s surprise), “I can’t stand salted pork. But, uh, would you mind if we ate somewhere out of sight? I don’t really want to draw too much attention to myself, after…” he gestured at himself.   
“I was going to eat in my cabin.”  
Derek regrets the words even as they leave his mouth. Being alone with this boy was the worst kind of idea, but his damned manners won’t allow him to take it back no.   
He follows a few paces behind the boy as they make their way below deck (luckily they don’t have to pass through the general quarters to get to his cabin). The boy lingers by Derek’s door, shifting slightly from foot to foot and glancing around. Derek lets them both in and places the bucket down on a small table, then busies himself lighting torches around the room and very carefully avoiding looking at the boy. When he finally has to turn around the boy’s seated on his only chair, clutching at his ribs. For the first time Derek get a good look at his injuries and notices his slowly blooming bruises, blood slowly dripping from a tear in the soft pink flesh of his bottom lip. Derek inhales sharply.  
“I-I’ve got some balm that will help that.”   
The boy half-smiles, wincing a little. “Thank you, sir. You don’t need to, though.” Derek’s stomach lurched. There was that word again.   
“Don’t call me sir. Derek is fine.”   
“Oh—Alright, uh, Derek... My name is Stiles.”   
Derek pulls out the balm and a rag used to apply it. He passes it over the table to Stiles (Stiles, he thinks, what a strange name. He can’t wait to say it out loud, to find out how it tastes in his mouth) who applies too much of the stuff, in entirely the wrong place.   
Derek sighs.  
“Maybe I should...”   
He gently pries the rag from Stiles and perches next to him on the edge of the small table. He wipes carefully at the blood and bruising on the boy’s face, and found himself oddly relieved to finally have an excuse to study it: it was quite as unblemished as he had initially thought, bar a couple of moles and a little new burn forming on his nose, no doubt from the sun exposure. Speaking of sun exposure, he has tiny freckles, sun kisses his mother called them, all over his nose and face. He added some balm to the burn, to which Stiles opened his mouth (Gods, those lips) and inhaled sharply.   
Suddenly Derek can’t help noticing how close their faces are, Stiles’ eyes are closed and his mouth is just slightly open and Lord Derek can’t breathe, this kid is making his heart wild and his breath fast and he doesn’t even want to think about what’s happening in his britches.   
Derek’s got his other hand braced against Stiles’ face, just barely touching his cheek. Stiles leans into it his touch. Opening his eyes he regards Derek from under long lashes ; Derek strokes the boy’s cheek and brushes his fingers along his jaw. There’s pressure at Derek’s hip and he realizes Stiles' hand is there. Stiles lifts his face to his until they’re barely a breath apart, and Derek is still for a moment before he realizes Stiles isn’t going to close the gap. Mentally, Derek knows what a terrible idea this is. The worst kind of idea. The kind of idea that could kill both of them.  
He ignores his better instincts, and kisses him.  
Stiles is tentative at first. He kisses Derek’s bottom lip and the side of his mouth, pulling away a few times and planting small kisses or sucking Derek’s bottom lip into his mouth and just barely closing his teeth on it. Impatient, Derek presses closer and Stiles opens his mouth, welcoming him.   
His mouth is warm and wet and it isn’t fair how good he is at this. He moans softly into Derek’s mouth and Derek is suddenly light-headed. He pulls Derek into his lap and Derek realizes dizzily that there are forty people on board who would happily murder them for this. And he wishes, so much, that he could care at this moment, but Stiles’ fingers are dragging along his bare hip and Derek is straddling him, and he can feel Stiles’ erection pressing into him, and he is utterly lost.   
.  
Several long hours later, sated and warm, Derek lay with his head on Stiles’ chest, who absently runs his fingers through Derek’s hair.   
“Gods above, Stiles, what are you doing on his ship?” Derek murmurs. “You’re just a kid, you shouldn’t be here.”  
Stiles laughs, more bitterly than Derek would have thought possible.   
“I doubt I’m much younger than you, maybe a couple of years. I’m...” he pauses for a moment.  
“My mother is unwell,” Stiles continues. “My father… works, but he doesn’t have the money they need to help her. This was the only way I could think to help.”   
“I’m sorry.”   
He feels Stiles shrug.  
“In all likelihood she’ll die, regardless; they don’t even know what wrong with her. But I couldn’t sit around doing nothing while she just withers away like that. It was eating away at me. So now…”  
He’s quiet for so long Derek thinks he’s fallen asleep, but he speaks again: “I’m glad, though. I hate ship work. And pirating is… But I’m glad I met you.”   
Derek isn’t sure how to respond for a moment. “You only hate it because you’re so bad at it,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve seen a sloppier cleat knot.”  
Stiles laughs, clear and happy, and Derek feels a swelling in his chest.  
“Do you still want lobster? It’ll be cold now, but I can’t very well take it to Erica to heat.” Derek says, sitting up, and looking around absently for his britches.  
“Mmm, I love cold lobster... Do you have any bread? And don’t you dare put pants on.”   
.  
It’s hours later again when Stiles finally slips out of the cabin and to his own bunk. Derek glances out of his porthole, where the sun is just peeking over the horizon. He sighs and starts to put on some clothes, there’s no real point trying to sleep now.  
The day passes uneventfully. The pirates are on their way to intercept a trade ship, which was still at least a fortnight out. Derek is in charge of preparing the munitions and overseeing the navigation, so he’s got plenty of options to avoid Stiles- he doesn’t trust himself to act normally around him. As a result he only sees him once all day, hoisting a sail that several of the boys were repairing, and as he stretches up, Derek’s mind is transported to the night before, to how Stiles’ lithe body looked in the flickering lamplight without a stitch on. He flushed, and Stiles chose that moment to notice him. He grinned and winked, as if he could see the images playing in Derek’s head.   
Derek works until after the sun goes down and then leans over the railing at the bow, eating some cold bread and cheese. He’s only there for a minute or so when a warm body joins his side, plucking a piece of bread out of his hands and lifting it to his mouth. Derek raises an eyebrow. Stiles smiles and licks his lips, and Derek simply sighs. How can he have him at his mercy so quickly, Derek wonders. Stiles glances around at the deserted deck and strokes Derek’s cheek, leaning in to whisper, “Meet you in your cabin?” In his ear. Derek shivers and nods, realizing that at Stiles’ mercy is right where he wants to be.  
.  
This time, Derek manages to get a little sleep, dozing off with Stiles pressed against his back, mouthing at his neck and murmuring to him. When he awakes, Stiles is gone- and for a moment before rational thought finds him, he feels sad and cold and lonely. But then he shakes his head and glances at the rising sun. It’s time to rise for the day.   
.  
They’re making better time than anyone would imagine, it’s only eight days later and by the next morning they would be at the trade ship if the winds stay in their favour. There’s an almost tangible feeling of excitement in the air.  
Since the first night Derek hasn’t spent a single night away from Stiles, although some nights they force themselves to part early; it’s too easy to notice an empty bunk every night. Every other night he has a new bruise or ache, always laughing it off and attributing it to clumsiness. But Derek had seen him, although he moves like he is new to his body, he scrambles up and now the rigging like he was born to it, he never slips or misses a step. For now Derek says nothing, he knows Stiles will tell him when he needs to. Or, he hopes that he will.   
As the fight approaches it becomes harder to avoid Stiles, and at one point Stiles walks right by him, heavily favouring one leg and wincing a little with every step. Derek catches his eye and, almost imperceptibly, Stiles shook his head.   
That night, Stiles half-reclines in Derek’s cot, his foot resting in Derek’s lap and he pulls small pieces of glass from his shoe while Derek carefully removes pieces from Stiles’ heel and cleans the wounds with balm.  
“Tell me who did this.” His voice is low, dangerous.   
“Derek, what good do you suppose that will do? You’ll beat him, kill him maybe? Then what? You get to explain why you’re upset about the treatment of a cabin boy—Ow! Oh my God, ow,” he squeaks as Derek pulls out a large piece. “It won’t do any good anyways, since there are twenty more just like him.”   
“What else do they do, Stiles? It is not just this.” His words, like his hands, remain steady.   
“Of course it’s just this; it’s just stupid pranks, Derek.” Stiles said, but he seemed suddenly interested in a mark on his shoe, which he resolutely stares at. “Besides, I know you’ll take care of me.” He leans over and cups Derek’s face in his hand.   
Derek decides to drop it; there are more important things to do just now.   
.  
While they prepare for the raiding of the trade ship, Ethan limps past Stiles. He’s a mess of injuries, one of his eyes is black and his nose is obviously broken, and he doesn’t even glace at Stiles (which is unusual, since he had taken a… special interest in him).  
Shocked, Stiles turns to Derek, who watches Ethan with a hard glare, a slight smirk playing at his lips.   
.  
When Stiles approaches his bunk he wrinkles his nose. There’s a strong odour emanating from his bed. Gingerly, he reaches out and touches wet fabric, drenched in urine. He guesses he should be glad they hadn’t done anything worse. Yet.   
He tries to sleep, curled up on the ground but gives up on that idea. He digs out a deck of cards from his pack and makes his way to the deck.  
There was a large cache of liquor on the ship that they weren’t expecting, and these things had a tendency to go missing (along with the crew’s wits) so Derek was given watch over the goods. Stiles half-expects to find Derek asleep (in his experience the man was quick to sleep) but he was awake, moving and spinning across the deck, sword in hand, making passes and blocking an invisible opponent. Stiles is almost overcome, watching his strong and precise movements, the moonlight throwing his hardened form into sharp relief, almost like magic. He can’t believe someone so beautiful wanted to give him the time of day.   
Derek pulls up suddenly, spinning towards him, panting slightly. His face breaks into a smile.   
“Hello,” he says, crossing to Stiles. He looks around the deck, making sure they’re alone, and then cups Stiles’ face in his hands and kisses him. “Couldn’t sleep?” Derek whispers against his lips.  
Stiles smiles, “I thought you might need some help staying awake. Apparently I was wrong, but maybe some company anyway?” He lifts the cards he brought between them and chuckles, “A game of chance: loser is at the winner’s mercy.”  
“Sounds great,” Derek grins.  
.  
The door leading from the quarters below deck was slightly ajar, and from the crack there was a clear view of Derek and Stiles. Ethan smirks as he watches them with sharp, dark eyes.   
.  
Stiles wakes, curled up on the hard floor with Derek’s jacket rolled up under his head, to being choked by rags shoved in his mouth. His eyes snap open and he struggles wildly and is pulled to his feet by two pirates, while two more tie his arm behind his back. The pirates aggressively shove him out of his cabin and up the steps to the deck. There’s a horrible, sinking feeling in his stomach and his chest is on fire, his heart beating faster each step he’s forced to take.   
When they reached the deck he sees Derek beaten and tied to a post, shirt cut open and revealing his bare back, his head down. Captain Duke stands behind him with a whip in hand and a book in another, which he reads out loud. Stiles doesn’t hear all the words the Captain is saying but he makes out enough to know it’s recounts of Stiles and Derek’s dalliance. He catches Ethan’s eye in the crowd and the pirate sneers at him. The space around him seems to close in on itself and everything moves slowly except for him, who is breathing too fast, his heart is pounding too quickly, too hard.   
“To the charges of disobeying direct orders, sinfulness and unholy union, how do you plead?” The Captain commands.  
“Not guilty.” Derek says, his voice clear, though his head is lowered and his chest is heaving. Stiles can’t tell if it’s from despair or rage.   
Captain Duke lifts the whip and snaps it down on Derek’s back, leaving a huge red welt. Stiles lunged forward, struggling in the men’s grip. If he could have screamed, he would have.  
The Captain repeats: “To the charges of unholy union, how do you plead?”   
“Not guilty.” Derek maintains.  
“Hale, it’s a pity. You had such potential.”   
He brings down the whip again. Where it crossed the last welt blood began to ooze. Stiles struggles harder against the men’s hold, tears streaming down his face. The Captain turns to look at Stiles, and without looking breaking eye-contact, brings the whip down a third time. Stiles flinches like he’s been hit. The Captain’s face is a mask of disgust.   
“The plank. Both of them.”   
.  
The crowd of enraged pirates is at their backs. Their arms are bound tightly and the plank stretches out before them, but they stand together.   
“Send the boy first.” The Captain commands. Derek makes a mad lunge for his sword, which is laying just on the other side of Captain Duke, but he is pulled up by the tip of the Captains sword. He draws it so fast Derek didn’t even see him move. 

A sharp point of a sword pricks Stiles’ back, he steals a glance at Derek and Stiles wishes he could say goodbye, tell him he loves him; say anything, really.   
A din from the other side of the ship draws everyone’s attention. Stiles can’t crane his neck to see, but it sounded like a pile of barrels came loose and crashed down. The crew is distracted for only a moment before they continue on with the punishment.   
.  
Stiles turns to look at Derek before the sailor, Ethan (just to add more salt to the wound), forces Stiles over the edge of the plank. Derek closes his eyes when he hears the splash in the roaring water below. Derek is trapped between the Captain, whose sword hangs by his side, and Ennis, whose sword is digging into the soft flesh between his shoulder blades, and he is unable to move an inch. He won’t even get a moment to mourn before he dies, he realizes.   
He struggles against the ropes as he began the unsteady walk, but they don’t budge. He prays Stiles’ hadn’t been so tight. As soon as he’s over the water he desperately looks down, but there is no sign of Stiles. Sick of putting on a show for the crew Derek takes the last few steps and dives overboard. Searing pain shoots through him as the salt water hits his wounds and he fights the urge to cry out. He kicks desperately and takes a deep gulp of air when his head breaks the surface. There’s a splash beside him when a barrel hits the water. The damned port, Derek thinks. He sinks again and looks around for Stiles, but there’s no sign of him- he must have gone deeper than Derek could see, into the icy depths.  
Hopeless, Derek stops struggling, and lets himself sink.   
.  
Hands are at his back, fumbling with the knots. His hands come loose and he tries to struggle to the surface, but the hands drag him down. His eyes are closed, and suddenly afraid all of this is an oxygen-deprived dream, he refuses to open his eyes. But then there’s hands on his face and a mouth on his breathing into him, filling his lungs. Derek finally opens his eyes to the golden brown of Stiles’. They fought to stay down, together, until the ship passed, and then they shot to the surface. The ship has only moved a couple of hundred metres, but it’s enough. The barrel stayed relatively close and they reach it in a few minutes, and cling to it.  
Finally Derek had caught his breath enough to talk.  
“How?”   
Stiles is still out of breath for the moment so he just unsteadily kisses him, mouth cold and salty.   
“I don’t know.” He says, several long moments later. “The crash, right before they made me walk? I think it was a distraction. Someone cut my ropes, and told me to hold the ends. It was a woman.”  
A woman? It would have had to have been…   
“Erica,” Derek said, in slight wonder. He can’t believe she’d risk her neck like that.   
“The cook,” Stiles was surprised. “Why would she?”  
“I think she liked me. She might not have saved us, but at least we get to say goodbye, huh?” His voice was soft and Stiles’ smile faded a little.  
“How far away from land are we?” Stiles asks, looking around desperately.   
“At least a week’s sail, Stiles, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It was all my fault, I went to— I went to Ethan. I hurt him. I knew what he was doing to you- I suspected from the first night we— but I didn’t know, not until I was taking the glass from your feet. He watched us until he had something to take to the Captain. I’m so sorry I’m so stupid... I would give anything to take it back.” His voice broke and tears finally started to pour. He just can’t take that they were going to die, that Stiles was going to die, because of him.  
“Hey- Hey now, Derek, look at me. Derek.” Stiles commands. Derek lifts his eyes and meets Stiles’. Unsteadily Stiles strokes Derek’s face, “I wouldn’t take it back. I love you.” He said it simply, as though it was all that mattered.   
They floated like that for a little over half the day and they talked.  
Stiles told Derek more about his mother, how she was a nurse and she had the sweetest singing voice, but she was a terrible cook. His father cooked instead- great big greasy meals for all of them. He told Derek about his first lover, who had been the son of his mother’s best friend, and how he had fallen for a girl; the daughter of his father’s boss, and left Stiles.   
Derek told Stiles about growing up on the ship: about how his mother, Talia, was the captain and how she was tough but good; about his uncles and brothers and sisters; about the fling he had with one of the extra sailors they had when he was sixteen; how when they got into port the sailor had taken his virginity and then skipped town and Derek had gone to his mother, crying, and she had held him and spoke to him softly, and told him to guard his heart.   
.  
Now Stiles’ grip is getting loose and his arms are shaking, and Derek’s talking to him as steady as he can, reminding him that he had to go home, that Derek had to meet his parents, and to just hold on because they were going to figure this out.  
Stiles’ eye widen and he licks his dry lips. “Am I hallucinating, or is that a ship coming towards us?”   
Derek turns his head so fast he hurt his neck, but it’s worth it- because it is. It’s a ship and against all odds in this massive ocean it is sailing right for them.   
He tries not to get too hopeful, because more than a couple of hundred metres on either side and it would be for naught. They couldn’t yell loud enough to be heard, and they would be almost invisible. But within the hour it’s headed right at them and Derek can’t believe his eyes. Even as the ship pulls up the crew aboard throws down a rope. Stiles is too tired to argue when Derek fixes the rope to him first and he’s hauled up. A crewman throws it back down for Derek and he can finally let go of that accursed barrel.  
Once he hits deck he crawls to Stiles, where he’s laying, exhausted, on the deck. Praying they hadn’t been picked up by another band of pirate (or worse: a vessel of the law) Derek looks up at the people surrounding them. He gasps: “I must have drunk sea water.”  
“Why is that?” Cora asks, grinning like a wolf. “I’ve been tracking you for weeks; you’re a hard man to find. Bit of luck, really, that you apparently got tossed overboard.”  
Derek ignores the jibe and hauls himself to his feet to embrace his younger sister.   
“Good Lord, how?” He asks, for the second time that day.  
“I lived, after the storm. Laura-” She turns her eyes away and breaks off, her voice raw.   
“We just must have floated in different directions after the wreck. I had no idea you were alive until I heard about the infamous Pirate Hale. And then I had to find you. I always arrived a little too late, you’d just left port, and we’d arrive in time to pick up survivors of whatever vessel you robbed. They always had interesting tales of a huge beautiful man who was fantastic with a sword but somehow didn’t kill anyone, and then slipped a survivor a compass.” She laughs, her eyes clearing from whatever pain she couldn’t think of right now.  
“Now I think you need some rest, Pirate- and then you’ll have to tell me who that young man is.”   
.  
“So what now,” Derek asks Cora as the three of them eat supper a few days later in the Captain’s deck, which had been relegated to Derek and Stiles (Derek had argued at first, until Cora told him it was less from the good of her heart and more because the crew had been complaining about the two of them keeping them up half the night. Derek blushed, but Stiles only looked absurdly pleased with himself. Derek had discovered, as pleasant as their first times together were, with the looming threat of imminent murder taken away, it was much more enjoyable.)  
“We can’t really go back to America, not unless you want to give up the ship to the law, which would be risky at best.”  
Derek shakes his head. “Although nothing would give me more pleasure, “ He growls, “I cannot in good conscience give up Erica, she would be hung among the pirates.”  
Cora grinned, “Good. This’s the more exciting choice.” She unrolls a map and points at a large landmass on the other side of Europe, “This is Asia. You wouldn’t believe the stuff they’ve got there, and they’re barely trading with any country or colony, it’s basically up for grabs. One of the women on board- Kira’s her name- speaks Japanese, which is the language of this country-“she points to a small island, “I proposed a trade agreement. We have the ship, we have a crew. All we need is a route and a captain.”   
She looks at Derek with shining eyes. “You’ve already got the quarters, Derek, let’s make it official? We can continue the work we used to do. The work we were meant to do.”   
Derek looks at Stiles, who remains focused on the table. “We can take you home, Stiles, to your family, if that’s... what you want. I won’t keep you against your will.”   
Stiles is silent for a few long moments before he beams at Derek, “Maybe home- just for a visit. I hear they’ve got amazing medicine in the orient?”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired, loosely, by "Gay Pirates" by Cosmo Jarvis. There is some implied assault and rape. Thank you to my awesome beta readers, Aralintheobsessive, and Casey (whose tumblr name I have lost!), it would be just awful without your help.   
> I am considering adding chapters, let me know what you think.


End file.
